For reference, this is Dr. Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto professor who was fired a few months ago for his stance on using gender pronouns. He's a strong proponent of free speech, which he touches on in this discussion.
He wasn't fired. The university sent him two warning letters and then backed down from taking any action. He's still teaching psychology there.
That being said, I am not informed enough on the topic of gender differences to actually weigh in on who is right or wrong in this situation.
The issue aside, the hypocrisy in this whole situation is really what pisses me off. James appears to be soliciting discussion and trying to consider both point of views while the masses simply took whatever the media headline was an ran with it without considering both sides.
Also, it sounds like he _actually_ was more asking for feedback from a specific group within Google that in-turn decided to circulate it within the company as a whole.
The most troubling thing is the claim that James makes about the 'super secret, unrecorded meeting' that he attended within Google that prompted this paper in the first place. If that meeting really did take place, that is a sign of systemic racism/sexism within Google at some of the highest levels. If. I have no idea who to believe in this situation. An investigation into the company may be called-for.
It's entirely possible that as he said, he wanted to spark some reasoned debate and he's just made a few mistakes (and got particularly unlucky with Gizmodo cutting his charted caveats) but it's equally possible that he knew exactly what reaction he was likely to provoke and aimed for just beyond the line of what would be considered acceptable.
(I have no insight into what he thinks or how he's been treated, but if I wanted an open discussion on the merits and shortcomings of Google's diversity policies, I'd probably start by suggesting that quotas are nearly always bad and male/female inequalities in STEM start long before people apply to Google, not with an essay insisting that men are more suited to software roles because biology and that Google's promotion of the view that attitudes contribute towards gender imbalances is left wing bias that threatens my psychological safety.)